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Sept. 22, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:30:43

Universal Morality is My Mother's Grandchild!

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	Ah, first things first, I will say all the words that I can say.
	Hello, sorry for the late start.
	I'd like to say tech issues, but nobody believes me about this anymore, which I can completely understand.
	Well, hello. Good evening.
	Good evening.
	All right, I should have my glasses that don't have the tape on them.
	I get that solely professional look.
	How are you doing, my beauties, my darlings?
	My gorgeous philosophy nymphs.
	How are you?
	What's new? How are things?
	Hit me with a Y if you're a subscriber.
	Hit me with a subscribe subscription if you're not.
	I demand it. Why, why, why?
	Yeah, I'm just wondering because we could go for only supporters later.
	Or not. What was the last Crystal Palace match you saw?
	I don't know. I think I was eight or nine.
	A friend of mine's dad took us to a football game, a soccer game, footy game.
	And it was two hours or so and not one score.
	Like no scores. And I was like, yeah, I think I'm done with this whole thing.
	I've never been... I used to watch...
	So with my family, I used to watch Wimbledon when I was a kid.
	You know, the typical 70s Wimbledon kid where you've got a 12-inch black and white TV and you're kind of squinting to see this fuzzy ball.
	A ball so fuzzy it needs manscaping.
	Oh, you sent a tip. Thank you so much.
	Yeah, you can do that. Of course, if you're in here, you can send a tip my way, which I really appreciate it.
	It's been a hard couple of years for philosophy, let me tell you that, to put it mildly.
	And so, yeah, anything you could do to help out, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it.
	Why do you think that the 20th century was the bloodiest in history?
	Because science gave us technology but didn't give us liberty.
	And so technology serves the state, right?
	I just did this whole – it was an hour and a half show on Francis Bacon and the birth of the modern, right?
	The birth of modernity.
	So this is science which was supposed to liberate us with universal truth ended up to a large degree enslaving us because it gave more and more weapons, power, and surveillance capacities to the state.
	So if you have – See, I was saying that...
	I say this in the show, and this is for subscribers at freedomain.locals.com.
	And again, you can use the promo code, all caps, UPB2022. You can sign up totally free, get my free book, my new book, get dozens of fantastic call-in shows that were too spicy for the mainstream, and you can now get my History of Philosophers series, which I think is 14 or so shows.
	I just did one on Francis Bacon.
	And... It's funny, you know, believe it or not, well, you can believe it, right?
	The shortest show that I did was on William of Ockham, Ockham's Razor.
	The simplest and shortest is probably the best, and that's been my shortest show in the history of philosophers.
	But I just did Francis Bacon, and I was sort of saying that my whole goal as a thinker, as a moral philosopher in particular, has been to do what morals, what Francis Bacon did to science, which is to turn it from a subjective into an objective philosophy.
	To turn it from the mysticism of alchemy into the rigor of science.
	And if we can do for morality what Francis Bacon did to science, take it from the subjective to the objective, have people no longer study people and history and word and text in the scholastic tradition, but actually study reasoned facts and evidence, the benefit that Francis Bacon gave the world,
	400 years of the scientific method and dragging us out of the swamp of the Middle Ages, The benefit that objectivity and universality in morality will give far greater benefits even than the scientific method, which has been outside of language.
	The greatest invention of the human species has been the scientific method.
	But if we can get UPB and morality out there, we do even better than the scientific method could have done.
	All right. Yeah, they're trying to put their own coin, yeah, digital currency.
	So yeah, for sure, they'll come.
	You know, I don't want to do politics, but I will just sort of mention this once as a flyby, which is it's impossible to understand what's happening in the world if you don't truly and deeply understand that governments are going bankrupt in five to seven years.
	Nothing makes sense.
	If you forget that point, nothing makes sense, right?
	The war in Ukraine doesn't make any sense.
	Digital currencies don't make any sense.
	Increasing censorship doesn't make any sense.
	Like, none of it makes any sense.
	So, anyway, we'll make sense of things, I'm sure, as we go through.
	So, yeah, hit me with your questions.
	I certainly have stuff to talk about, but I am here for you, my friends.
	I am your willing, abject, and happy thought slave.
	So, if you want to hit me with your questions, I'm happy to hear them.
	Should we keep contributing to retirement?
	Well, I'm not going to give you any financial advice, but there's no possible way, certainly if you're under 50, there's no possible way that full retirement benefits, mathematically.
	I mean, unless there's some 20th century motor company miracle from Atlas Shrugged.
	There's no way. What is it?
	Is it by 2030 in America?
	100% of tax revenues are going to be taken up by forced income redistribution and interest on the debt.
	I mean, governments appear to be acting randomly until you understand the basics, right?
	Is the government of the West going bankrupt or Russia and China also?
	Well, Russia and China, of course, are facing significant depopulation issues.
	And this is one of the reasons why China is so keen on automation.
	Once China had a couple of decades of the one-child policy, you can't just snap your fingers and reverse that.
	And Russia, of course, is facing its own depopulation issues as well.
	See, what happens is, This is not contemporary politics, but this is sort of to understand how these things play out in the world.
	So socialism is what I call a younger sibling philosophy.
	A younger sibling philosophy.
	So, if you're a younger sibling, you'll know what I'm talking about.
	When you say that whining about fairness is usually the strategy that you have to deploy to get things, right?
	If you have an older sibling, that older sibling usually gets more allowance.
	They get to stay up later.
	They have more privileges. They're bigger.
	They're stronger. They're faster.
	They're better at sports because they're older.
	There's lots of things that you kind of feel like you're in this titanic shadow and You can't win resources in competition with an older sibling because they're bigger, older, stronger, and they get more resources.
	There's nothing wrong with that.
	There's nothing wrong with that.
	If you have a sibling who's, I don't know, three years older than you, then when that sibling is 10 and you're 7, of course they should stay up later.
	And of course they should get more pocket money because they're doing more and better chores and all of that.
	But as a younger sibling, what you do is you just sit there and you kind of seethe.
	You kind of see... A friend of mine was telling me that when he was younger, his older sister was allowed to stay up five minutes longer.
	And so he would sit in his bed counting.
	One, two, three.
	And when he got to 300, of course...
	Time to come to bed, right? So, you're kind of helpless, and you resent the bigger and stronger, and whining, complaining, having minor pathetic tantrums, and always, always deploying, it's unfair!
	It's unfair! It's peak survival strategy.
	It's not the most elevated aspect of humanity, but those who weren't able to successfully implant the guilt-producing its unfair chip just didn't make it to humanity.
	So, resentment of the bigger and the more powerful and the more successful, I have never seen a study on this.
	It would be one way to potentially test the theories to say, okay, likelihood of more collectivist or socialist tendencies, likelihood of being sort of woke or on the left or Democrat or whatever, the likelihood increases...
	As you go down the sibling chain, right?
	The younger the sibling, the more likely they are to be socialist.
	And the older the sibling, the more likely they are to be on the free market side or whatever it is, right?
	So, resentment of the stronger...
	And a feeling of helplessness and a feeling of endless existential systemic unfairness would be a younger sibling trait and these of course occur very much on the left.
	Now, when you pathologize this, what happens is you resent people who do better than you, you don't feel you can compete, and you don't understand because you haven't been taught that people doing better than you is absolutely essential for you to have anything.
	I mean, I write about this in my novel, The Future, that everyone wants diversity when they are We're good to go.
	But when you're not in the position of being a direct consumer, you can afford to have various, you know, as long as it's not a field you're not in, it's probably a better way to.
	Everybody wants diversity in other fields, and they want meritocracy in the fields that affect them.
	So... This feeling of helplessness, this feeling of resentment towards the more successful.
	Of course, we should be teaching children from the very beginning, right?
	We should be teaching children from the very beginning to celebrate and be thankful for, along with the annoyance and frustration that comes with this, to be thankful for and celebrate the people who are better at stuff.
	People who are better at stuff.
	It's the only reason that stuff exists.
	Right? So, If you want to be a singer and somebody else is a much better singer, and I don't just mean like the voice, but you know, the stage presence and whatever, right?
	If you're a singer and somebody else is a better singer, the only reason that there is anyone who wants to hire singers is because the best singers get the job.
	The only reason there's a music industry is they don't just do a random selection of karaoke people and put them in front of 20,000 people, because if it's a random selection of karaoke people, there won't be 20,000 people there.
	There won't be anyone there, in fact.
	Karaoke can be a great way to empty a bar.
	So we should be teaching people that meritocracy is the only reason that anything exists, including their food, including their house, including health care, fresh water when they turn on the tap.
	That only exists because there are people better than you who are doing that stuff.
	I'm not good at building houses, but I like to be in houses that stay up.
	So it's really, really important that the housing materials don't come to me.
	They go to the people who are really, really good at building houses.
	It's really such an important thing to teach.
	It's kind of counterintuitive.
	So... Because when you're a younger sibling, you tend to look at the minuses of being a younger sibling.
	You don't look at the pluses of being a younger sibling.
	The pluses are that the parents are usually a little bit less controlling, are usually a little bit less strict, a little bit less of a disciplinarian, that you'll probably get to live a bit longer.
	And also, you get...
	If you have a decent relationship with your older sibling or siblings, you see them make mistakes, you get some wisdom from them, you get some advice from them, and they're the icebreakers and you can go in behind, or they're the person who's ahead in the bike race and you can just tuck in behind them and not get quite as much wind.
	And so there are significant benefits to being a younger sibling, but of course if you simply measure by size, strength, and strength, Staying up late and freedoms and pocket money or allowances or whatever, then you'll just feel resentful.
	So of course we should be teaching people that...
	When you see someone who's much better than you at something, you should be thankful.
	I mean, I understand that there is a resentment.
	It's always going to be a resentment because we're competitive.
	But you should also teach people that, let's say you want to be a musician, but there are other people who are better musicians.
	Well, then either get better at being a musician.
	And you can always practice if you're a musician, but there's an upper limit to how well you can sing.
	There's no singing lessons that could make me sound like Freddie Mercury.
	He was just born with the voice.
	He didn't actually take any singing lessons because he wanted, A more raw sound, and this, of course, I think from the early 70s, he started getting nodules and really had to work around that.
	You can hear his voice crack in live shows.
	So teaching people that, yeah, there are really wealthy people in the world, but that's the only reason any of us have anything.
	Because when wealthy people weren't allowed in the world, people starve to death on a regular basis, right?
	So if there's some guy, and I'm not talking like Bill Gates who's buying up every square inch of acreage known to man, but in general, like in a free market, there's going to be some guy who owns a lot of land, and he's going to be a really productive farmer, right?
	And that's why he can bid on a lot of land, because he can get the most value.
	If he can get twice the crops out of his land than I can, then he can bid a lot more for that land.
	He's going to get the bidding, and this is how the people who are best able to maximize the value of property get the most property.
	That's the magic multiplier that gives us the excess of the modern world.
	So teaching people this should be from very early on.
	Teaching people that, okay, there's always going to be someone better than you.
	And even if you're the very best person, you're going to age out of it and someone's going to get better than you.
	If you're the prettiest woman in the world, well, you wake up with half a wrinkle tomorrow and it all falls apart, right?
	But the only reason we have anything is because we don't destroy the people who are better than us at stuff.
	If a mediocre singer got to destroy all of the good singers, there would be no music industry because nobody's going to pay to listen to a mediocre singer.
	So, I mean, it was that Tina Turner was saying to Ike Turner, you know, like, your songs just sound all the same.
	And he was not that great a songwriter, although listening to him doing Catfish Blues on his last album was really something.
	So, to get back to sort of China and Russia.
	So China and Russia went through a whole phase, or rather were subjected to a whole phase of resentment of the successful.
	The younger sibling resentment of the successful.
	And there's this unbelievable, toxic, bedrock, destructive, dark, ugly fantasy that people have.
	That if they destroy more successful people, the less successful people become more successful.
	That's a wild, wild notion.
	Like if you destroy all the good singers, the mediocre singers become good singers.
	No, they don't. They don't become good singers.
	They may become the best singers, but they don't become good singers.
	Like if you kill all the soul people, the short people don't become taller.
	They're still the same height because they are, yes, well, relative.
	But there's this fantasy that you destroy all the productive people and then the cap or the ceiling on the aspirations of the poor is just going to be released.
	They're going to go up like a rocket.
	Like, if I personally strangle all of the rocket scientists, I become a brilliant rocket scientist.
	I mean, it literally is mad.
	It literally is mad.
	No. If you personally strangle all the rocket scientists, you just don't have any rockets.
	There's no rockets.
	There's no science. But if you can be talked into killing the...
	The bourgeoisie, the productive people, that there's some guy who owns a lot of land who's twice as productive a farmer as you are, and you go and kill that guy.
	Now you can be twice as productive.
	No, you can't. Because if you could, you'd do as well as he did, and you wouldn't have any desire to destroy him.
	So this is a truly satanic message that comes into the world.
	If you can't compete, kill.
	If you can't be the best, kill the best.
	And then you can become the best. Like this whole theory that, well, we'll take money from the really productive people, we'll give it to less productive people, and then everyone will become wealthy.
	It's completely mad. Redistribution is destruction.
	Redistribution is destruction.
	Now, if you look at...
	This comes out of National Socialism.
	This comes out of Communism.
	This comes out of Fascism.
	There's this rage and resentment.
	There's younger sibling rage and resentment towards people who are better than you at stuff.
	And look, we've all felt it.
	Come on. We've all felt it.
	Like that old New Yorker cartoon about two guys at a bar, right?
	One of them turns to the other one and says, Hey man, how's your life going?
	The guy says, you know, it's not bad, but I'm still not Sting.
	Because Sting was like the shiznickle, right?
	He was the guy to go to when it came to.
	He was really good looking, he was a great singer, he was a great songwriter, a decent performer, and was considered to be the coolest guy around back in the, I guess, late 70s and 80s.
	Now he's just a sour-looking egg with a hair transplant.
	But... We've all felt that resentment, you know, like you see, I mean, geez, you even feel, this was Tom Brady, there was a video of Tom Brady just striding in to do his Super Bowl and he's got his headphones on and his cool clothes and, yeah, I mean, it's hard to not look at that guy and say, yeah, okay, I could take a slice of his life and it wouldn't go down like castor oil.
	So we all, and I view, I mean, I used to view it kind of resentfully when I was very young and I tried to sort of really consciously work to switch that in my mind to be aspirational.
	So, you know, I went into theatre school and I was pretty good.
	I was sort of middle of the pack when it came to actors, but there were actors that were better than me.
	No question. They could just, like, literally flow into characters and all of that.
	And I found...
	I think...
	I mean, you can hear my audiobook readings.
	I think I've got some skill in that area, but, you know, I'm certainly not going to be Marlon Brando.
	And for me, if you can't be at the top, like, just keep moving around until you can be at the top of something.
	For however briefer period that might be.
	But... If you can make it aspirational and say, well, there's excellence in the world, so I need to find where I can be motivated to have and produce excellence.
	And it doesn't have to be some public thing.
	It could be just being an excellent father.
	It could be being an excellent craftsman in whatever it is you do.
	It could be anything. But just really aim towards excellence and look at the excellence of other people as something inspiring.
	But for a lot of people, excellence is something that Just enrages them.
	They feel that the height of others is what makes them short.
	And it's very easy for the wedge-makers, the dividers and the set-againsters, to rouse this popular resentment at quality, towards quality, without saying, listen, the only reason that there's such a thing as popular resentment is because there's a population.
	The only reason there's such a thing as a population is we allow the excellent people to control the means of production.
	We allow the best farmers to have the most farmland or that's the way the market works.
	We allow the people best able to produce widgets to get the most resources for widget production because they can bid the most because they can get the most profits.
	The only reason we have anything at all other than bare subsistence eating berries off the arse of a half-dead alligator in a swamp is because we allow the market to end up with the invisible hand guiding the most resources to the people best able to maximize productivity from those resources.
	Who gets to bid the most on a ton of steel?
	Well, the guy who can satisfy the most customer demand at the greatest value for that ton of steel.
	So... It's very easy.
	Humanity goes either way, based on what you say and literally what you say and what you do in your personal private dinner party conversation.
	Oh, the rich should pay their fair share.
	Now, of course, it's all, it's crapitalism, not capitalism.
	Now it's all crony capitalism and all that.
	So I get that it's not like every slice of wealth is justly earned.
	And the social media companies have gained massive valuations over the course of the pandemic that they scared the living shit out of everyone in order to pursue those profits.
	Although, to be fair, Mark Zuckerberg has lost $71 billion because he did this completely insane reframing of Facebook as meta.
	Meta. Oh, who gives people this advice?
	I don't know. Coca-Cola is now sugar-fought bubble water.
	I mean, it's just, it's bizarre to take a very successful brand and rebrand it for some...
	I just remember reading, Facebook is rebranding as Meta.
	It's like, that's going to be a disaster.
	It's not even New Coke.
	It's even worse than New Coke.
	Anyway, so the market punishes for all that.
	And plus, they were turning over private messages to the FBI and all kinds of stuff.
	So... So with regards to China and Russia, and I talked about this, you should really check out my documentary on Hong Kong called Hong Kong Fight for Freedom.
	You can get it at freedommain.com.
	Just click on the documentaries tab.
	It's free. And I talked about this in my documentary on Poland as well.
	Just this rage and resentment towards the intelligent, the able, the competent...
	It's so easy to just blow on the resentful embers of...
	Well, I mean, Nietzsche called it resentment or ressentiment.
	He used the French phrase, but just this resentment towards people who are better at stuff than you.
	And listen to this. No matter how good you are at anything, there's people around you who are better at things.
	Right? I mean, I may be good at this, but there's, you know, an infinity of other things that I'm not good at.
	So... We're good to go.
	So, aspiration versus resentment.
	That's the sort of big pole, and I think the younger siblings are a little bit more prone as a survival strategy to resentment, to cries of unfairness, and to being unhappy and upset and all that, and demanding resources because of unfairness.
	So whenever I see a rich pay their fair share, I think, oh, I guess your older brother was kind of a jerk, right?
	So, in Russia, and...
	In China, they have just targeted the able and the competent because they both had inflicted on them and to some degree fell prey to this resentment, to this rage, this hatred, this murderousness that I'm not successful because you haven't shared your success.
	I'm not successful because you took from me.
	I'm not successful because you were successful and that robbed me of the, like, oh, this rage, this rage, just rage.
	I'll get the cheerleader if we can throw the captain of the football team in jail.
	It's like, well, no, you won't.
	You'll just have guilt, which is very unappealing and hard to live with.
	Resisting this, and you can see this all the time, all the time going on in the world.
	People who are trying, like, you know, the wage gap, right?
	The wage gap. Oh, women are only paid 67 cents on the dollar.
	Oh, resentment. Oh, we could have more.
	It's unfair. Redistribute resources.
	Give us jobs. Give us benefits.
	Give us pay. Right?
	Well, you look at how much women contribute to the tax system versus how much they take out.
	They don't contribute that much compared to what they take out.
	You look at what men contribute to the tax system versus what they take out, and men contribute far more, on average, to the tax system than they take out in taxes.
	So, which is more unfair?
	The wage results of voluntary choices by men and women?
	Or the enforced redistribution of income from men to women through the power of the state?
	But, Give people an inequality.
	They can either be aspirational or they can be enraged.
	They can be resentful. And as long as people can be talked into the resentment, they'll decapitate the smart people in society.
	They'll attack and rage against the productive people in society.
	And then... They reap the rewards and the wages of sin.
	Well, we all know what the wages of sin are.
	I don't need to repeat this.
	And the sin of resentment is one of the greatest ones.
	Envy, right? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ass or thy neighbor's wife.
	Thou shalt not covet.
	And, you know, there's a reason why that was one of the Ten Commandments.
	And we all know what the wages of sin are.
	All right, let me get to your comments and questions.
	Is that the mentality that causes siblings to fight each other for the parents' resources?
	No, because parents will often set siblings against each other so the siblings, by fighting each other, don't notice the dysfunction or abuses coming from the parents.
	This is what people do in society.
	If they don't want you to notice that you're being governed unjustly, they'll just cause you to fight amongst each other.
	Men fight against women, blacks against whites, you just fight, fight, fight, right?
	Because all group disparities are explained only, only by exploitation and bigotry and whatever, right?
	So... Is the measure once, cut twice kind of guy?
	I don't know what that means. I know what that means, but...
	Oh, let's see here. What a great principle.
	I've never considered that. Yeah.
	A sibling sequence is, I think, pretty important when it comes to understanding abstract philosophy.
	I was the youngest of five.
	As a kid, I hated it. As an adult, I benefited from seeing their successes and failings and not repeating their mistakes.
	Yes, and it is really, really important if you're a parent, right?
	And whether you have multiple kids or you don't, it's really, really important.
	You know, I mean, I've had this conversation with my daughter when she was younger, right?
	So we'd be at the playground and some younger kid would fall off something, right?
	And my daughter would say, well, that was kind of clumsy.
	And I said, no, no, the kid is four years old.
	He's not clumsy. I mean, you wouldn't fall like that because you're seven, so you've had almost double the lifespan of this person, but don't refer to a little kid as clumsy any more than I would sort of look at a great artist and then look at your little lollipop people and say, well, that's bad art. It's like, no, that's fine art for a seven-year-old.
	And the one thing that older siblings...
	Oh, man. Don't get me started.
	We're a whole novel about this. But the one you can get at almostnovel.com.
	It's free. But the one thing that older siblings really need to remember is they're not better because they were earlier.
	They're not better because they were born earlier.
	That's just an accident of history.
	Ooh, you made it out of the birth canal a full three years before I did.
	That makes you a golden god of virtue, doesn't it?
	It's like, no, it's just a complete accident.
	Your egg was sooner in the line, that's all.
	And a lot of older siblings will lord it over younger siblings and feel superior, and that's pathetic!
	That is unbelievably pathetic!
	Really? Like an 8-year-old playing, I don't know, my daughter was talking about this in the Ask Me Anything, right?
	She was at a trampoline park and she was playing dodgeball with some friends and, you know, some of the 15-year-old boys were like beaning it at the 12-year-old girls.
	Even those who had glasses, the 12-year-old girls who had glasses on, I was like, dude, that's really pathetic.
	Hey, look, man, as a 15-year-old guy, I'm tougher and stronger than a...
	Twelve-year-old girl with glasses is like, that's a really, really pathetic comparison.
	And if you're ever in a situation where you're comparing yourself to a younger kid and feeling better, smarter, wiser, taller, stronger, ooh, what a great human being.
	That's such a pathetic standard, and this is one of the instabilities of the elder siblings, is they end up with this superiority that is completely unearned and completely pathetic.
	I can do more chin-ups than you.
	Yes, because you're five years older.
	Good for you. Time has its effect.
	Are you going to be proud of getting chest hair?
	I got chest hair before you did because it's so pathetic.
	And this is one of the tensions, of course, wise and mature elder siblings, which, you know, I'm sure exist out there, theoretically, but wise and honest, honest and humble elder siblings is like, yeah, I can play basketball better than you, but...
	That's not a fair standard because you're younger, right?
	I mean, so we can't do an apples-to-apples comparison.
	And so for younger siblings, if they have this sort of ceiling of superiority, if not contempt, from older siblings, you've got a big choice in life.
	You've got a big choice. If you want to become a big person, but there's someone in your life who looks down on you and thinks you're small, maybe because of a historical sibling relationship, or maybe it's parents, right?
	If you want to be any kind of size in this life and there are people around you who think you're small, you've got one fucking choice and one fucking choice only.
	Get rid of them or stay small.
	Facts, man. Straight up spitting facts at you.
	If there are people in your life who think you're small and you want to become big, you either stay small or ditch them.
	You can't become big with people looking down on you.
	People don't believe in you, right?
	You can't believe in the people around you as well.
	Other tips to identify good companies.
	What are some ways to avoid going above and beyond for a company and getting two movie tickets in compensation?
	It's tough to think of good companies these days because they're operating in such a non-meritocracy or in fact anti-meritocracy.
	They're operating in such an anti-meritocracy framework.
	I mean sometimes legally and sometimes for HR woke mentalities and so on.
	The best way to identify a good company, a great company, a great boss, look in the mirror and start your own.
	And sadly you've just got to stay small.
	When you get bigger you start bumping into more and more regulations.
	Locals is fucking great.
	I think that's their tagline.
	Locals is great. We effectively have a small classroom, and Steph is the professor.
	We've all been looking forward to seeing.
	Thank you. I appreciate that. All right.
	Let's see here. Big Bang stuff.
	Yeah, I find origin physics to be very boring, so I don't really care.
	It doesn't have anything to do with moral philosophy, so...
	I've been working out at a college gym.
	Oh, I used to work out at a college gym too.
	It is packed most of the time.
	It's probably 65-35 girls to boys.
	Virtually all the girls are wearing skin tight and very revealing clothes.
	The showcasing of female sexuality is very distracting.
	I can't help but look at the girls while I'm resting in between sets and walking around.
	I feel like these girls should be dressing more modestly, and that I, and all men, shouldn't be expected to put up with this kind of hyper-sexualization of the female body.
	Feminists telling men to just control their lust seems quite unfair and unrealistic.
	What is the line? It seems to me that if we don't draw a line somewhere, the sexualization of the female body in public places like the gym will just continue to get worse over time.
	What are your thoughts? Well, what's interesting is, so when I went to university, I think it was about maybe 60-40 boys to girls, and I mean, it's really tragic for women now.
	So women have hypergamy, which means they want to marry up, right?
	And there's nothing wrong with that.
	It's why we got out of the caves and into skyscrapers.
	So women want to marry up.
	So as more and more women go to university, they're looking for guys who are high earners who've gone to university because once you've gone to university as a woman, you don't want to marry a guy who's only got a high school education, blah, blah, blah.
	So as more and more women go towards university and graduate, then there's just fewer and fewer men for them to...
	Marry. As a woman ups her education, a woman with a master's degree doesn't want to marry a guy who's only got a high school or an undergraduate degree or some sort of community college thing.
	So they're always looking up, always looking up.
	But as a woman, as you rise...
	There's fewer and fewer men at the top.
	And of course, all the men who are at the top have all the options in the known universe, right?
	And especially for women. Like, the student debt thing is all women, right?
	It's all women who are unable to pay their student debt.
	I mean, obviously there are exceptions, blah, blah, blah.
	But yeah, it's largely a female issue.
	Actually, a female issue. Because, like, women are told to follow their passion, and women are told that, you know, live, laugh, love, and it all is going to work out, and it's your dream that matters, and they're just given this goopy nonsense to just try to navigate by fairy dust or something like that.
	Whereas men are like, yeah, I've got to pay this back at some point, so I've got to choose something productive, and, you know, women just end up with this massive amount of debt.
	So then, you've got these women who are, well, I mean, indoctrinated, used to be educated.
	All these women who are They're looking up for the very few men who are above them, and the women are aging out, hitting the wall.
	They got a lot of debt, and they want a total top gear, six-figure-plus kind of guy who's really well-educated.
	It's bizarre. It's bizarre, and it's really unfortunate that people aren't telling the truth to women about this stuff.
	Never settle. Are you insane?
	Of course you settle. Everyone settles.
	Never settle. Always aim for the top.
	What ridiculous nonsense is that?
	It's completely wild.
	Of course everyone settles.
	You have to settle. I mean, I'm sure there's some wonderful job in the world that pays $10,000 an hour for, I don't know, some...
	It's like, we'll never settle for anything less than that job.
	It's like, what are you talking about? Of course you have to settle.
	Everybody navigates and negotiates and settles.
	I mean, I genuinely believed, and I still believe now, 20 years later, that I can't do better than my wife.
	Are there more attractive women in the world than my wife physically?
	Yes. Are there more attractive men in the world than me physically?
	Yes. So we settle.
	I mean, saying to people, don't settle, is just saying, I really, really want you to be depressed and alone for the rest of your life.
	Of course you settle.
	No. I don't know, it's just a bizarre thing.
	Don't ever settle, girls.
	It's like, what? But then just be alone.
	Because if you get, you know, 80% of the women chasing 20% of the guys, the guys have no incentive to settle down.
	Because there's always new, younger women coming along.
	I mean, and we all know this, right?
	I mean, as men, I mean, I think most men, when you're a teenager and you're a boy, most men do the same thing.
	They will try and ask out the most attractive woman they can possibly ask out.
	If she says yes, great, then maybe you'll aim next even higher.
	If she says no, you go down.
	Less and less attractive until you get a woman who says yes.
	And women are not asked out by the top tier of men, so they wait until some guy asks them out and then they get a sense of...
	Like in any high school, there's probably like 10 people that everyone wants and everyone else has to settle.
	And even those people who get what they want probably don't end up very happy with it.
	It's not like, oh, dating the head chiller, oh my god, she's got body issues and she's anorexic.
	It's like, oh my god, right?
	And that's a mess too.
	So the reason why women have to dress so revealing is because it's two-thirds girls and one-third boys.
	And so how do women compete for fewer men?
	Well, some women will try to get quality of character and good humor and that's pretty rare.
	Other women will just like, well, I'll show more and more skin until a top-tier guy asks me out.
	But of course, that's sowing the seeds of your own destruction of the relationship.
	Because if a guy is asking you out because you're showing more and more skin and you've got the tight two oranges in a stocking gym butt, then he's only asking you out for your body.
	And you're not going to feel loved.
	You're not going to feel appreciated. You're not going to be respected.
	He's going to try and have sex with you.
	He'll succeed or he'll fail. Then they just move on.
	Right? And then you're a little more bitter.
	You're a little more used up. You have a little less of ability to pair bond.
	So you've got to show even more skin. And of course, if you're not showing skin, but the woman next to you is showing skin, men being men will be drawn to the woman showing skin because that's a sign of more sexual access, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So this is the competition, that women getting higher and higher, quote, status means that they have to become less and less self-respectful when it comes to putting themselves out there because they're competing for fewer and fewer guys.
	Now, if you were to say to women, which would be an honest thing to say and a real thing to say, you say to women, all right, listen, Listen, ladies.
	This is daddy talking. You need to listen up.
	You can go to university, but you're going to have to settle for a man who's less educated than you.
	It's just the way it is. You can go and become a lawyer, but then you're going to have to marry a plumber.
	Because the more and more successful you become, you're going to have to choose from men below you.
	Because there just aren't enough men at the top tier to go around.
	And the men at the top tier, it's like a groupie saying to Steve Tyler in 1976, man, you've got to settle down just with me.
	He's like, there's 10 other women lining up outside.
	What am I doing? I'm not going to do that.
	So you've got to say to women, yeah, yeah, listen, you can aim high, you can aim to have a big career, you can aim to get really well educated, you can aim to make a lot of money, but you're going to have to settle.
	You won't be able to marry a guy more successful than you.
	Because a guy who's more than successful than you is going to want someone to stay home and raise his kids.
	And he knows that because as a career woman, you're probably not going to want to do that, you're going to resent it, he doesn't want you.
	But I mean, all of this is, you know, all of this stuff is just nonsense, right?
	When the government runs out of money, female sexuality will be restrained.
	Because there won't be all of this money to subsidize all of this pretend education, right?
	And women won't be able to rely on the government to pay for kids out of wedlock and give them free healthcare and massive pensions and so they'll actually have to start relying, if they want kids, they have to start relying on men to provide.
	Once they have to start relying on men to provide, they'll have to start looking for quality men.
	And every woman alive, every single goddamn woman alive knows for an absolute fact and an absolute certainty That the sluttier you dress, the worse a man you attract.
	Absolutely, Garrett. Everybody knows that.
	And men know that, and women know that.
	It's not called the tramp stamp for no reason, right?
	That lower back tattoo that you apparently aim for.
	The sluttier you dress, the trashier the man you get.
	Or at least the less constant a man you get.
	I mean, if you advertise Coke, people tend to buy Coke, right?
	So if you advertise sexual access, you'll get men mostly interested in sexual access, are selected men, who aren't going to be reliable, who aren't going to be stable, who aren't going to be loyal, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	Everybody knows this is kind of boring to talk about, right?
	And the only reason that you're interested in trashy men is that the state is covering up and male taxpayers who are more responsible are covering up for the sexual addictions of men and women who are less accountable, less responsible.
	So the money runs out. The clothing comes back on.
	Men of quality, men of character, men of loyalty, men of productivity are back on the table at the top, and women will grit their teeth and use the oldest form of birth control loan to man, which is called a dime.
	You just put it between your legs and hold it there.
	And, you know, we're in a state of delusion.
	We're in a state of absolute delusion.
	Infinite money, the illusion of infinite money, has driven us mad.
	And I'm not kidding about this.
	It has driven us mad.
	It is such an unreal situation.
	It's a Truman Show unreality.
	And so people are free of consequences that are simply following hedonism.
	I mean, if you're a smoker and you knew for absolute certainty that you were never going to die from smoking, why would you quit?
	If you like smoking, right? It's unreality.
	We're living in a psychotic, dissociated, unreal state.
	We go, oh, mass formation, psychosis.
	It's like, that's fiat currency, man.
	Fiat currency completely distorts everything under sun and moon.
	Why are crazy surgeries happening these days?
	because mandates that insurance covers it or governments will cover it.
	So you can't talk people out of crazy when the conditions haven't changed.
	You can only talk people out of crazy when the conditions change, for the most part, right?
	I mean, some people will tunnel out themselves, but that's a pretty arduous and hard process and all that.
	So, yeah, it's...
	Yeah, women can show all the skin they want, and they can date trashy guys, and they can get pregnant, and they can have abortions, and they can get welfare, child support, whatever, right?
	Palimony. They can get all this free stuff.
	I mean, if you knew that $3,000 a day was going to be deposited in your bank account no matter what, how would that affect your life?
	Pretty big effect, wouldn't it?
	Would you watch your pennies?
	No. Would you make sure you save for your retirement and you genuinely believe for the rest of your life $3,000 a day is going to drop into your bank account tax-free?
	I mean, you travel, would you be really disciplined about going to school and getting a degree and working hard and doing 70 hours a week, becoming a doctor or a lawyer?
	No. Right?
	You would... Be hedonistic, you would self-indulge in all that, and you wouldn't really worry about the consequences of bad decisions because there wouldn't really be any.
	And when good decisions are punished and bad decisions are rewarded, which is the basic redistributive tax system, the welfare state, good decisions are punished, you pay more taxes, bad decisions are rewarded, you get thousands.
	And $3,000 is not coming out of nowhere.
	Now, not a day, right?
	But... A woman with two kids...
	This was some years ago. I called it the welfare trap.
	There's a whole video on this. You can...
	FDRpodcast.com A woman in America some years ago with two kids on welfare was making the equivalent of $100,000.
	Somebody had to pay for that.
	It wasn't her. Not her.
	So she'd have to get a job...
	You should have to get a job. I think it worked out at about $80,000 a year for her job she broke even on the welfare benefits.
	In other words, up to $80,000 she was being taxed at over 100%.
	That's going to change behaviors.
	I mean, nobody lives the same life after winning the lottery, right?
	So as long as this delusion of infinite resources, free money, borrowing, debt, and all of that, as long as that...
	Delusion continues. I mean, asking for restraint when people are in a situation that's provoking delusions, until the situation changes, right?
	So I hope that helps.
	This is what happened in Zimbabwe.
	The new African farmers couldn't make the lands produce enough food.
	Yeah, for sure. I mean, Mugabe, when he drove the whites out, and then they begged for them to come back and all that.
	It's very predictable. If talent is divine, is this why commies hate religion and talent?
	Because they're tied to each other.
	No, the communists say they don't hate religion, they hate Christianity.
	They don't seem to have much problem with Islam, they don't seem to have much problem with Judaism, they don't seem to have much problem with the Hindus, but they hate Christianity in particular.
	So I was really specific about this.
	Well, they hate the concept of talent, right?
	So the leftist socialist argument is that anybody who has more has stolen from those who have less.
	That there's this massive predatory thieving that's going on that nobody can quite detect in the free market.
	That's a big conspiracy theory, right?
	Now, the other argument is IQ and talent, hard work, whatever you want to call it, right?
	There's something that to a large degree is under your control or to some degree under your control that you can just work harder or do better or whatever, right?
	Study more. And so they don't like arguments that undermine the resentment-fostering hypothesis called everyone who has more than you stole something from you.
	And the only way for things to be fair is you to go and kill them and steal it back, right?
	So any hypothesis which explains disparities in individual and group outcomes that pushes back against the resentment that the left wants to sow, well, that's got to be opposed, right?
	It's competition. If no one was Olivier, how would others have something to strive towards?
	Yes, and describing is really, really important.
	As I said, I mean, this is something all the way back to, gosh, I think he said it after I had this sort of idea, but Schwarzenegger was saying he couldn't run for president, unlike Cruz for some reason, but because he was born in Austria, right?
	He couldn't become president, he wasn't native-born.
	And he said, well, of course I'd run for president if I could, right?
	I mean, why be in a field and not aim for the top?
	And that's perfectly fair and valid, right?
	And I tried a bunch of different fields until I found one that I could really be at the top in.
	It wasn't that fun. And Olivier, yeah, I read his autobiography when I was younger.
	I was in theater school. And I remember to this day he had this great thought.
	He said, you know, imagine something about your character that...
	Nobody else knows, but it's going to give a richness and depth to your performance and scarcely be equaled.
	For instance, I was on the West End once, and what I did was...
	I had a character who was clean-shaven, but I imagined that very recently he had shaved off his mustache.
	And so, if you've had a mustache, as everyone knows who's had a mustache for a while, when you shave off the mustache, you're aware of this.
	So you're touching your upper lip just a tiny bit more, and the breeze hits you slightly differently, and you have a certain air to you.
	Now, of course, I never told anyone.
	It wasn't in the script. It wasn't in anything that the audience would know, that I played a character who'd recently shaved off his mustache.
	But I remember getting some of my rave reviews for that, and I think it was because little choices like that can make quite a bit of depth to the character that doesn't show up in any explicit way but implicitly communicates itself to the audience.
	It's a remarkable process.
	Anyway, so I just remember thinking, like, okay, maybe I won't be an actor because I don't think I'd ever sit there and say, you know what, I'm going to play a guy who just shaved off his mustache.
	That's going to give a depth and richness to the character.
	Never would have occurred to me. All right, so let's see here.
	Well, so with women as well, so there used to be a deal, right?
	There used to be a deal for a woman which is we're all going to be together.
	We're going to have a phalanx together. We're not going to give up sex without commitment, right?
	And it used to be because the commitment used to, of course, be marriage, right?
	So we're not going to give up sex without commitment.
	That was the... That was the deal.
	Now, if a woman broke ranks, she would be shamed and punished and excluded from social life, right?
	So if a woman got pregnant out of wedlock or was a slut or whatever, then she would no longer be invited.
	She would no longer be part of the cool group and nobody would hang out with her and she would be seriously punished for breaking ranks.
	And that's how women said, we don't give up sex without a commitment.
	And that's perfectly biological, perfectly natural because human beings take forever to raise.
	I guess you're 13 and they take forever to raise.
	It's a great process, but...
	So yeah, women had this solidarity, right?
	Which is, we can't break ranks, because if we break ranks, it all crumbles, right?
	And then in order to, well, the welfare state was brought in for a wide variety of reasons, but one of the reasons the welfare state was brought in was to break the line of women not giving up sex, who were not giving up sex without a commitment.
	And so it used to be that a woman who, a girl in high school who got pregnant would be shunned and ostracized and all that.
	And then there was this huge PSYOP that went on.
	And I'm not kidding about this, like a huge PSYOP, like feminism as a whole coming out of intelligence agencies, so alphabet agencies and so on.
	But there was this huge PSYOP. He said, well, you've got to stop slut-shaming and, you know, you'd have endless movies where the girl just accidentally got pregnant and it was really sad and she cried and, you know, you just had to have all this sympathy and so on.
	And this was so that you felt bad for ostracizing people for breaking ranks.
	And then once those ranks were broken...
	Then women felt, okay, well, I can't get a boyfriend if I don't give up sex.
	If I don't give someone the V-card, I can't have a boyfriend because the man is going to choose, the boy is going to choose between me or the girl next to me and the girl to the right of me, the girl to the left of me, the girl to the right of me.
	They're going to give him sex.
	Maybe not full intercourse, but they're going to give him sex.
	So if I don't give him sex, he's just going to go elsewhere.
	And, you know, if you're a man, you can understand this argument.
	And so once women broke ranks and sex became something on the table, perhaps even literally, then it's just a race to the bottom.
	I guess I'm just going to have double entendres the whole evening, so...
	Is Sodom and Gomorrah a parable about the bust in Austrian business cycle theory?
	Once inflation incentivizes high time preference beyond a certain point, maybe there's no going back morally and you have to start over.
	Maybe on something like Bitcoin or gold.
	Yeah, for sure.
	So where does degeneracy come from?
	Degeneracy comes from debt.
	And, I mean, not solely, but largely.
	And... Degeneracy is a term that means many things to many people, but I think we can generally get a rough idea.
	I don't want to get into anything too specific because there's agreement and disagreement about what's in that general field, but...
	Degeneracy is the use of human sexuality outside of its general purpose is, you know, pair bonding and the raising of children, and it doesn't mean that you can't do things outside of that or anything like that, but in general, as a whole, in the largest sort of biological perspective, human sexuality is about the founding of families and the next generation, because without that, there's no people, right?
	And so degeneracy is not, that's the general rule and there's tons of exceptions, but the exceptions are the rule and the central purpose is horrible, evil, bourgeois, prudish, whatever it is, right?
	So it's not like there's a big circle called pair-bonding families and kids, right?
	And then there's lots of sexuality that is outside that, and that's fine, but that's the general thing, right?
	There's a general thing, and then there's exceptions.
	Now, of course, the people don't like to feel like they're exceptions, so they want to be in the mainstream, and I understand that, but the only way sometimes they feel they can be in the mainstream is to attack the sort of general big circle and blah, blah, blah, right?
	So, yeah. Yeah.
	When you have debt, you don't have really, I mean, you get pensions and you don't have to worry about your old age, so you don't have to worry about kids, you don't have to worry about having a good relationship with your kids because the government's going to pay you, you don't have to worry about getting along that well with your husband because you'll get welfare or alimony, child support, whatever it is, right?
	So, and all of this stuff's kind of driven by debt, so...
	It must be all the new workers Zuckerberg hired that gave him the meta-rebranding idea.
	It's still one of the massively, unbelievably ridiculous business decisions ever.
	Like, not even of the last, like, ever to take a company that successful and rebrand it for no particular reason.
	It's just so bizarre. What are your thoughts on the Russian mobilization?
	Um... Well, it's...
	I mean, the whole thing is just awful.
	It's absolutely appalling. It's absolutely appalling.
	So, I don't want to get into this in much detail, but I mean, people just aren't being...
	The purpose of the Russian conflict is energy to Europe.
	I mean, that's the war that they're waging, is starving Europe of its energy.
	And the number of governments that are shipping arms to the region, like whatever you think of the conflict, if you want to declare war, go through the process of having the debate, passing a resolution, declaring a war through the parliament.
	That's usually over Congress. That's the way it usually goes, right?
	Declare a war. Have that debate.
	But that's not happening, right?
	We're just shipping arms. Just shipping arms over there.
	So you get involved in the war.
	There's no formal declaration. There's no debate.
	There's no end game. There's no end goal.
	There's no exit strategy. Nothing.
	So, the countries that are supplying weapons to the Ukrainians are in the war.
	You're in the war.
	This is not a Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
	You're in the war. I mean, you understand this.
	Material support is one of the definitions of involvement.
	You give material support to the enemy, then you're considered an enemy combatant.
	Material support is being in the war.
	So, this is why it's escalating, because every country is sending weapons, or lots of countries are sending weapons and so on, and...
	If you're in a war and there are countries who are aiding and abetting your opponent, they are considered to be, I think, by any rational, I'm not saying moral, but any sort of rational, they're part of the war.
	Part of the war. So what's Russia doing?
	Well, Russia is, of course, strengthening its alliances with China.
	It is working at displacing with China the hegemony of the U.S. dollar by creating a more commodities-based or fixed-based or value-based, real value-based currency.
	And it is not going to sell a lot of energy to...
	To Europe. Now, of course, Europeans, and I think like most of these sort of big mondo governments, super government organizations, I mean, they want to pivot from COVID restrictions to CO2 restrictions, right? So if there's energy shortages in Europe, that serves that purpose.
	So, you know, everybody wins. In war, everybody wins except the citizens.
	Arms manufacturers win, the media wins, the governments win, super governments win, but yeah, it's always and forever at the cost of the local civilians.
	And here's the thing too, like everyone who's like cheering on, this sending arms and material support to the Ukrainians and so on, they've got the flag and the bios and so on, it's like, you know, you're just wandering into a minefield, like here, just wandering into a minefields.
	There's no war over there.
	The war is everywhere. The war is everywhere.
	It's really sad.
	It's really sad. Alright.
	Let me get caught up here.
	Yeah, so, I mean, the Russians are basically saying, oh, if you want all these green policies, okay, here's your green policies.
	If we're just bad guys, well, obviously you don't want bad guys to supply you with energy now, do you?
	Because that would be just crazy.
	You can't take energy from the bad guys, so I'm just going to refresh for a sec.
	I can't get the new messages. There we go.
	So... Yeah, this truly mad thing about, like, we can't have nuclear power plants, we can't have coal flyers, we can't have gas, we're alienating the only people who are supplying us energy.
	I mean, it's wild.
	It's just wild. I'm sorry, we've got a whole bunch of questions here.
	here I didn't realize it was not refreshing.
	Somebody says, I teach teenage girls as a casual teacher in public schools.
	Looking into a father's eyes when he's with his daughter is the most frightening thing I've seen.
	Yet he's dropping his daughter off to my class in a miniskirt.
	How can we take rights from girls and demand a dress code?
	I taught in an Islamic school where the girls were covered head to toe.
	the teaching atmosphere is much better.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	My mother always said, don't settle.
	I'm still single and I'm definitely not the one who's benefiting from her advice.
	Yeah, people who say don't settle, they're just appealing to your vanity.
	And look, I understand that. I mean, we all, obviously, we're all the protagonists and heroes in our own story.
	But yeah, anybody who says to you don't settle is just trying to off your whole lineage.
	Because this idea that nobody settles, I mean, everybody has to settle.
	Everybody has to settle. Everybody has to settle.
	Alright, so let's see here.
	I wonder if some of the anti-settling ideas sold to women are actually from other women trying to eliminate the competition.
	Yeah, it could be. It could be.
	Yeah, and depression. What is it?
	One in ten Americans are now depressed?
	Up from like 5.5% or whatever just 15 years ago.
	And one in five young people are depressed.
	Just appalling.
	All right.
	All right.
	Maybe the saying, the love of money is the root of all evil, is about inflation. .
	The love of money is the root of all evil.
	So, I think what that means is they don't say money is the root of all evil.
	And they don't say the love of hard work or the love of productivity.
	They say the love of money is the root of all evil.
	And what I mean by, what I think is meant by that is the love of the unearned.
	Because the love of money is, if you love money, you'll work hard and you'll provide value in the free market and all of that.
	And they don't talk about that.
	They do. Certainly in the Protestant tradition that I came from, hard work is very important.
	Hard work and frugality and savings and all that's very important.
	Certainly, while you can see my studio, I don't have to tell you anything about that.
	But yeah, the love of money is the root of all evil.
	I think it's the love of the unearned.
	Like you'll love money to the point where you won't work hard to earn it, but you just want it anyway.
	So the love of the unearned is the root of all evil, which I think is actually quite true.
	You have to fix the men first.
	Yes, well, isn't that the statement that you always hear, right?
	But what about the men? Or women, oh, but what about the men?
	Like, that's just, that's very sad.
	it's very deflective let's see here Steph over the past month there have been growing clashes between Muslims and Hindus in the UK Oh, yeah, and if you know about the history of partition, and you know about the history of when the British pulled out of India and Pakistan, that there was hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered in this rather ancient conflict.
	So, yeah, it does, you know, there isn't this powder above the British Isles that erases memory from everyone.
	It's just, right? How bad do you think the NATO versus Russia war could get?
	Well, I mean, my general philosophy is hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
	I went out last weekend for the first time in years to a local hangout spot by myself.
	I had a great time. The problem with going to this place is that a former childhood friend is there all the time, and I'm almost certain I will run into them.
	Him, I assume. This former friend has turned into a vindictive social justice warrior.
	How could I approach a situation where someone negative from my past is hanging out at a place where I want to meet women and socialize with friends?
	I don't quite understand that.
	Why do you care about someone from your distant past?
	Not sure, I mean, maybe does he have something on you?
	Is he going to put something, is he going to try and rue for you?
	I mean, I don't understand. Just say hi to the guy and go and have your fun.
	All right.
	To be fair, where did Vietnam get all these MiG fighter jets?
	Sending weapons is something countries do all the time.
	In Afghanistan, they found the Taliban using Chinese rockets.
	I didn't say it was particular.
	I mean, I don't know why people...
	I didn't say it was particular to one country.
	Hey, Steph, very keen listener from Europe.
	I think my listeners are keen because keen also means sharp, baby.
	Very keen listener from Europe here.
	Love the show. Sleeplessness saw there was a live stream.
	There's something I wanted to ask you for a long time.
	If, say, 10 or 20 years ago, an opportunity had presented itself whereby you could have legally sued and bankrupted your mother and caused suffering, and there's a kind of retribution for the mistreatment she inflicted on you, would you have done it?
	I'd be honest. I'd say I wouldn't always try to be honest.
	I would have been tempted, but no.
	No, I wouldn't have.
	So first of all, she's gotten her money away.
	She's been on welfare for decades and she's got no resources and no money or anything like that.
	I gave her a lot of money in the past until I realized that she was just doing bad things with the money, so I couldn't continue that.
	No, I mean, listen, I don't mind a bit of the old sweet vengeance from time to time.
	And I've actually sometimes, I write about this in my book as well, I will sometimes wait a long time for vengeance to manifest.
	So I don't mind a little bit of vengeance, but the idea that I would go back and try to punish my mother...
	By suing her and then going to court and being cross-examined and having to dredge up all those memories and have to do all of this stuff and have to write about it.
	It would also be such an unusual situation that the media would write about it and all of that.
	I would not... See, here's the thing.
	I don't want to sound like, oh, this is some zen, better, wonderful way to be.
	I'm just telling you where I'm at now because, you know, I mean, I'm going to be 56 very shortly.
	And so it's been 41 years since my mother held dominion over me.
	That's a long-ass chunk of time, my friend.
	It's a long-ass chunk of time.
	I mean, the amount of time since my mother had power over me is the amount of time it takes for a woman to both be born and become infertile from age, largely.
	So, no, I don't want my mother to suffer.
	If I could sort of snap my fingers and have her suffer less than she suffers, I would absolutely do that.
	I have such a great life, such a meaningful life, such a life of depth and power and complexity and, I think, virtue.
	And the reason I'm getting emotional is because you're the guys who are making this possible, so thank you enormously for that.
	But I have such a great life.
	And listen, my mother's cruelty and violence is part of that.
	It's part of that. I would not be as great a father if my mother hadn't been as terrible a mother.
	Straight up, it's a fact.
	I would not be as involved a father if my father hadn't been as absent a father as he was.
	The quality and virtue of my life is deeply bound up in the evils I experienced as a child and as a young man.
	What she did was, and what he did, was immoral and evil in some circumstances and some situations.
	I have tried to, as best I can, use the judo moves of pain and violence and horror to roll into a place of greater virtue.
	What the fuck else are you supposed to do with it, right?
	You either let it plow you under, or you let it launch you up.
	There's no other choice. You can't just stay in the middle.
	Experiencing great horror as a child, where violence...
	Great madness. Madness, literally.
	My mother was institutionalized and lost her mind and never got it back.
	When you're in the presence and the pressure cooker of great violence and great madness, you either go crazy or you become super sane.
	There's no middle ground. There's no mean in that.
	I either was going to go crazy or had to become relentlessly rational.
	I either was going to fall into evil through replication or I was going to recoil from it into the greatest possible virtue that I could achieve and imagine.
	And to my satisfaction, I can't judge this objectively of course, but to my satisfaction I have achieved that.
	And she was part of that.
	I don't praise her for it.
	I don't thank her for it.
	But I like to think...
	I was talking about this with regards to Francis Bacon, right?
	So Francis Bacon was careless.
	He was a...
	I mean, basically Attorney General plus, plus, plus at the end of Elizabeth's reign and the beginning of James' reign.
	He was accused of...
	Corruption. People came forward and said, hey man, I gave this guy a lot of gifts.
	The court case didn't go my way.
	So, yeah, he took my bribes.
	And Francis Bacon said, yeah, like, you got me.
	I did take money and gifts, but it didn't affect my judgment.
	Boom, right, done. 40,000 pound fine, staggering amount back then.
	Thrown into, he was stripped of his public office.
	He wasn't allowed within 12 miles of where the king was.
	And thrown into the Tower of London.
	Now, he didn't stay there for very long.
	The king released him and so on.
	Now, I think he was more careless than corrupt.
	He was one of these people who's, you know, very good with abstracts who just can't handle his money or can't handle his finances.
	He was thrown in jail in 1598 for non-payment of debts and he had financial struggles ever since his father died when he was a young man in France.
	So I think it's just like a lot of doctors who are just bad with money.
	Artists and so on, right? It's bad with money.
	So when we look back from our vantage point 400 years later, 400 plus now, we say, okay, He probably wouldn't, because after he was disgraced and fell out of his public life, was not allowed to hold any public office and finances were destroyed.
	And he really, really turned to writing and describing the philosophy of science to supplement, no, sorry, not to supplement, to supplant Aristotelianism and scholasticism and humanism and the occultism that was very much in vogue at the time.
	And England was really ripe for new philosophy because it had been a long time, more than a century, century and a half really, since the last sort of major philosopher or even minor philosopher had been present in English letters.
	So when you look at the work that Francis Bacon did to bring about the modern world, and he, more than anybody else, more than anybody else in history, gave us the modern world.
	Thank you.
	Because he gave us science.
	And science is the very definition of the modern world.
	It's impossible to exaggerate how much we've learned in the last 400 years.
	It's in infinity compared to what was learned in the past 3 billion years of life.
	So look at that situation.
	Like, you and I, right?
	You and I, just looking back a couple of hundred years, right?
	If we could snap our fingers, right?
	We could snap our fingers and say, okay, should Francis Bacon be charged with corruption?
	And it wasn't just these two guys.
	There were like a score, like 20 more that came along, and apparently this is quite a regular thing.
	Again, I lean more towards carelessness than actual corruption, but...
	So if you and I were to snap our fingers, right, and say, should he be charged?
	Now, that's just amoral here.
	It's amoral, right?
	Pure consequentialism.
	Let's just dip into that for a moment.
	Pure consequentialism, just dominoes, right?
	Is it better for the world that he was charged, cast out a public life which was consuming most of his time and energy, and instead was driven into the wilderness so that he could invent and disseminate the scientific method, which is why most of us are alive today.
	You know, one of my ancestors died of a scalp infection and I've had one or two over the course of my life.
	Most of them just pass away, and one or two have had to get removed, sort of cysts under the scalp or whatever.
	He died of a scalp infection.
	Could have been me, right?
	So if we say, no, no, no, it was wrong, he should never have been prosecuted for corruption or whatever it is, then we cease to exist.
	Like, you and I cease to exist.
	I'm kind of thankful that he got prosecuted in this way and cast out of public life, because then he turned his energies towards something that actually changed the world in the future.
	I mean, these are the kind of perspectives, because I've known this story for a long time, these are the kind of perspectives that are intimately bound up with my deplatforming.
	My deplatforming has turned me back to pure philosophy, which is much better for the future than an analysis of contemporary politics.
	Let's say that UPB is everything I think it is, everything that I know that it is.
	And let's say that over time, UPB does for morality what Francis Bacon did for science.
	It's theoretically possible, no matter how much you may rebel against the idea, it's theoretically possible.
	Now, Of course, it took a long time for science to become embedded in our popular consciousness, and it took a long time for science to produce the kind of fruits that the scientific theories or methodologies that Bacon espoused and published about bore fruit.
	It's a long time. Generations, right?
	So UPP ain't going to happen in my lifetime.
	But it's going to happen. Progress, once cracked, progress is inevitable.
	Go back and forth, but even the aggression against me is confirmation of the value of what I'm doing.
	So... Let me ask you this.
	It's an interesting theoretical, right?
	So, in the future, when UPB has done for society in terms of morality what the scientific method did for humanity in terms of productivity and comfort and knowledge, was it better for the world that Francis Bacon was cast out of public life?
	Yes. No question about that.
	From a practical, pragmatic standpoint, it was, and not just slightly better, infinitely better for the world, that Sir Francis Bacon got attacked and de-platformed.
	Infinitely better. Now, imagine that UPB achieves that too.
	UPB comes out of my child abuse.
	UPB is the grandchild of my mother.
	She birthed me, I birthed UPB. She is direct lineage to UPB. Now, let's say UPB takes root, universal, objective, rational morality is proven, and it's accepted.
	It's the biggest revolution the world could have, bigger even than the scientific method.
	Because the scientific method, as we talked about earlier, gives both freedom to us and also powers of oppression to the ruling classes.
	Now, let's say that the good that I've done in the world was provoked or stimulated by being abused as a child.
	And let's say that the benefits that we as a community provide the world in the future are enormous and vast.
	And without a doubt, the benefits and positive things that we as a community have provided to the world as of now is fantastic.
	Amazing. Wonderful. Thank you again so much, everyone.
	So let's say a couple hundred years from now, people are living in the world that I describe in my novel, The Future.
	A society of peace and reason and self-protection and peaceful parenting and all kinds of good things, right?
	Now, let's say they look back in time the way that we look back in time, or at least I look back in time, to Francis Bacon.
	I'm so glad that he was attacked.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	How are they going to look at my mother if the grandchild of my mother was UPB, which changes the world in the future?
	How are they going... I mean, people will watch this one day and they'll look back and I know what they're going to say.
	They're going to say, I think it was terrible that he was abused as a child.
	But look at all the good that came to the world through that.
	If you can find a way to turn evil into good, it's the most powerful thing in the world.
	If you can find a way to turn evil into good, it's the most powerful thing in the world.
	And people will look back and say, he never would have come up with UPB if he didn't suffer under such unjust violence as a child.
	And there will be odd statues to my mother.
	In the future, I'm telling you, it sounds odd, it sounds weird, but this is, you know, I've always said I have like a 500-year business plan, right?
	So, people in the future will recognize the immorality of what was done to me as a child, but be relieved that it happened.
	So, why would I punish her for providing me such a motivation to virtue that I live a life of great love and great beauty and great power?
	All right, so let's see here.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Ten minutes. Oh yeah, you can compare my Wikipedia with that of Che Guevara who murdered homosexuals and Che Guevara was in charge of a camp where a woman came begging to find her son and he had the woman put into a room and dragged her son and shot him to death right in front of her.
	But I'm the bad guy, right?
	All right, let's see.
	All right.
	Alright, hit me with any last questions or comments.
	Thank you for the tips.
	Somebody says, my childhood was a mix, and you know, I just say somebody says, not because I just want to read out the username, it's not because I don't care, but my childhood was a mix of abuse and material good, but never emotional support.
	You've opened my eyes to making the difficult choice to be a better man than I might have been.
	Philosophy helps me have the foundation.
	I'm trying to build a good life.
	I have subscriptions that make the path an obstacle course, but I have a map.
	I hope to succeed even amidst global chaos.
	Good. Yeah, you don't want to surrender your moral autonomy to forces outside your control.
	All right. Bacon taking money off the corrupt reminds me of Gary Appy taking Epstein's money.
	You had an interesting answer to that I think UBB could happen in your lifetime, Stephanie Look at all the confirmation coming out of what you say, the falseness of the serotonin theory of depression.
	Society's taking less time to catch up with genius.
	Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, it's funny, you know, I regularly will see people suddenly found by the mainstream media that I interviewed like 12 years ago.
	Kind of natural. A friend of mine believes Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays.
	Is there any credibility in this?
	I don't think so. No, there's a lot of theories about who wrote Shakespeare's plays, but I don't think there's much confirmation.
	I also find it relatively impossible to think that one human being could have such gifts as Bacon, not only an incredible lawyer and an incredible politician and an orator and a writer and an analyzer of myths and fables and also the greatest poet and playwright.
	I mean, that seems to me almost like too much to put in one brain.
	I probably won't live to see the end of this conflict, but I hope UPB is my map to a good, quiet, contented life.
	A small dream, but it is enough for me.
	I hope my sharing will help the world heal.
	All right, let's see here.
	If your mom's abuse produced UPB, won't that give abusive parents the excuse that they're trying to produce great philosophers?
	Well... Some people have genetics that resist damage done by smoking.
	That doesn't mean that all the smokers are wise, right?
	So most people are broken by child abuse.
	There are a few indestructibles who seem to somehow make it through, and then there are very rare people who can turn that level of evil into virtue.
	But of course, as a parent, the idea that you abuse your child in order to produce virtue is not statistically a wise thing to be able to do.
	All right, so let's see here.
	How do I know if my girlfriend and I are ready to marry and can afford to start a family?
	Well, I dare say most of our ancestors had one-tenth of one percent of the resources we have, and we're here because they were able to start and have families, so I wouldn't let money stop you in particular.
	The reason I'd never sue my mother is that, let's say I got a bunch of money from her, all that would mean is that I would be less in pursuit of creating value in my own life to get resources.
	So you can afford it, I'm sure of that.
	And how do you know if you're ready to marry?
	So if you genuinely admire each other's virtues, then you're ready to marry.
	And if you genuinely accept that you can't do better, you know, with reason, with humility, with virtue, I couldn't do better than my wife, and I feel that even more now, 20 years after we first started dating, I still can't do better.
	She believes and she knows she can't do better than me, so there's never any...
	Temptation. How long till Russia or NATO fires off the nukes?
	I would not expect that.
	I would not expect that. All right.
	Wednesday nights never disappoint.
	Well, I'm sure they do if I'm not available.
	All right. Let's see here.
	Favorite nuclear war-themed pop song?
	Yeah, that's my favorite.
	What philosopher would you consider the opposite evil or deep state version of yourself?
	Oh! It's not just one.
	Did you hear Justin Trudeau singing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody?
	It's awful. People I could care less about, honestly.
	I could care less about it.
	Justin Trudeau's karaoke.
	All right. Who do you consider your closest philosophical peer?
	I will tell you that after I've done the History of Philosophers series, which you should really check out.
	I'm really telling you. It's fantastic.
	It's some of my best work.
	I'm always, always, always, always, always, always trying to do better.
	I'm not a rest on your laurels kind of guy.
	I reposted my History of Rome, Fall of Rome series, the Fall of Rome video, and people were like, oh, that was some of your best work.
	I'm like, fine, I'll do better.
	I'll do better. Alright, is there a point, or rather at what point is the person you can get is worse than giving up on it?
	We are not at all designed for solitude.
	We go crazy on our own.
	There's a reason why solitary confinement is a torture.
	We do not do well on our own.
	And to have someone in your life who you can stay with is...
	I mean, I get it.
	I had a call in with a woman two days ago, and she's like, I'd rather be alone than married to the father of my children.
	And of course, I'm somewhat skeptical of these things, and by the end of it, I'm like, yeah, no, I can see where you're coming from, for sure.
	So, if you can find someone, and recognize, look, there's some things about them that you're going to have to put up with, but guess what?
	There's things about you that other people have to put up with.
	There are things about me that my wife has to put up with and recognize that nobody's perfect.
	You're not all wonderful and there's going to be stuff about you that she legitimately has a couple of issues with and she's going to have to find a way to find the fun in it or to roll with it.
	What is the philosopher's curse in your opinion?
	Oh, being good and being captured by the powers that be to justify their existence.
	What do you do to avoid burnout?
	Play doom? What do you do to stay motivated and keep putting out great work?
	I love the world. I love the world.
	I love truth. I love virtue.
	I love the potential of human beings.
	So to avoid burnout, Play with ducks.
	Play with ducks. Play with my daughter.
	Play with friends. And I exercise, of course, a lot to try and stay fit and healthy for you, for my wife, for my family.
	And yeah, I haven't played Doom in a while, but I fired it up again.
	And yeah, it's quite a lot of fun.
	You can't really think of much else while you're playing that game because it's so in your face and extreme.
	And if anybody has any new games that I haven't tried, and I haven't really tried a new game in years, but if anybody has a new game that's somewhat similar, I like, you know, somewhat twitchy first-person shooters.
	Don't give me anything too strategic because they take too long to learn these things.
	Did you see Lex Friedman's interview with John Carmack, the creator of Doom?
	I did not. P-U-B-G would be perfect.
	I don't know what that is.
	I'm trying to get that acronym.
	Player Unknown Battlegrounds.
	I don't know. I did try a little VR. I got a VR device as research for my novel because as a futuristic novel I had to deal or tackle with VR and some AI stuff.
	So I did get a VR to try that and there were a couple of games that I thought were fun for sure.
	It's a battle royal where you have 100 people with guns on a small map and it narrows it down to one person.
	Oh. Tribes Ascend?
	Call of Duty games? No, I don't like shooting real people.
	I certainly like shooting white people, but no, I just don't like shooting real people that much.
	It's not for me. I just played VR and mini-golf with my dad.
	He's a couple hours away. Oh, yeah, that's fun.
	GoldenEye Remaster. I never played GoldenEye, but I'll check that out.
	Battle Royale. I've heard of that.
	All right, we're down to 20 seconds, my friends, so time for the outro.
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	Thank you guys so much for wonderful questions and comments.
	Lots of love. Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest Free Domain show on philosophy.
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